[mike777]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-December-13, 19:18, said:

If you rebid 2S, then partner's next bids would mean:

2NT = diamond length/strength, unsuitable for other contracts
3C = 3-card club support (or high Hx but obviously not here when you have AKQ)
3D = extra values, nothing positional in diamonds, no reason to bid anything else
3H = particularly good hearts (either 7 or something like AKJ109x)
3S = 4-6 majors
others = don't really exist (4D is a splinter for spades, I suppose)

If you started the auction 1H - 2C - 2H - 2S partner will bid 2NT. You have to choose between 3H and 3C over this.

3c



going down the rabbit hole.

ok what is pards bid over this?

[aguahombre]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-December-13, 19:18, said:

If you rebid 2S, then partner's next bids would mean:

If you started the auction 1H - 2C - 2H - 2S partner will bid 2NT. You have to choose between 3H and 3C over this.

The choice to NOT rebid 2S was the product of thoughtful understanding of your agreements, but not a partnership bid. This is a frequent theme, IMO. The natural rebid, then showing HX of hearts over the 2NT default action by partner would have worked out well. If opener does not make the mandatory 4D cue, because he doesn't have the bullet, things become easy.

[mike777]

Not sure 3h or 4d is mandatory here.

Many options.

I bid 3c

QT...ATXXXX...ATX...TX OR MORE.

[Statto]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-December-13, 19:20, said:

Partner wouldn't sign off in 4H over 3H with that, it's too good a hand. And if that is partner's hand, you want to be in 7C, not 6C.

Y. Ok, replace ♦Q with ♦J or ♦x, or perhaps one of these straws I appear to have in my grasp .

[Mbodell]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-December-13, 02:06, said:

5NT would ask for specific kings
6C asks for the Q of clubs

Both are grand slam tries.

If you wanted to consider playing in clubs you shouldn't have agreed hearts then used Blackwood; our rule is that once you have used Blackwood you have agreed on the strain (although you can convert to NT). That's why I didn't think it obvious that you would all agree with the earlier auction. I'm taking replies such as 'I'll offer 6C' to be shorthand for either 'you should play different methods' or 'I'd have bid differently to start with to offer clubs as a contract'

What's 5♠? Is that please bid 5nt to play? If so you could try 5♠-5nt-6♣ as a way of offering 6♣.

I think I'd expect with most of my partnerships that 5♠ was asking for specific K (and showing all the Keycards, grand try).

[Fluffy]

If you pick to start with 2 spades, you can then bid 3♥ over 2NT and then after partner sings off in 4♥ make a cuebid to pinpoint a problem in trumps, this will avoid a silly 6♥, but then the decision between 5♥ and 6NT will still be there.

[Zelandakh]

Mbodell, on 2011-December-14, 01:12, said:

What's 5♠? Is that please bid 5nt to play? If so you could try 5♠-5nt-6♣ as a way of offering 6♣.

I think I'd expect with most of my partnerships that 5♠ was asking for specific K (and showing all the Keycards, grand try).

I would assume that 5S asks for the queen of spades. I also prefer to invert 5S and 5NT here.

It seems that the AA without HK hand is still possible after 2NT so I am with mike in going slow with 3C over that. On the other hand it would help to know what partner's next bids would mean to see if this is actually going to help us. Out of interest, what would 4C be over 2NT? If this were Minorwood then we could bid 4S/4NT next to ask for the HK over partner's 4D/4S which would surely give us a decent chance of getting to the best slam. This is a hand with so many options we really need to know more system details to be able to trace the optimal path of obtaining all of the required information.

[pooltuna]

6♥ is probaly the call as partner is more likely to hold helpful cards in his suit than not

[rhm]

mike777, on 2011-December-12, 22:51, said:

I hope pard can figure out if 6c is:
1) to play
2) slam choice, and pard can choose the right one
3) grand try in h?

that seems to be alot of pressure to put on pard in the finals of the Gold Cup but an easier bid to make here in the forum.

1) After the 3♥ raise by responder and opener bidding nothing but ♥s to say 6♣ is "to play" sounds implausible to me.
2) Slam choice must come before grand try. It is much more important. Besides any other bid below 6♥ was here available for the unambiguous purpose of a grand try in hearts.
3) So I think "slam choice and pard can choose the right one" is clearly indicated here.

I can not see the pressure nor any reason for a misunderstanding.

Rainer Herrmann

[rhm]

cherdano, on 2011-December-12, 22:52, said:

The problem with offering 6♣ is our ♥Q, more specifically that partner doesn't know about it. He might very well pass 6♣ with a singleton club and ♥AKxxxx.

Would you raise ♥ with a small doubleton in ♥ and solid ♣s when more or less forcing to slam?

I wouldn't

Rainer Herrmann

[mike777]

rhm, on 2011-December-15, 06:16, said:

1) After the 3♥ raise by responder and opener bidding nothing but ♥s to say 6♣ is "to play" sounds implausible to me.
2) Slam choice must come before grand try. It is much more important. Besides any other bid below 6♥ was here available for the unambiguous purpose of a grand try in hearts.
3) So I think "slam choice and pard can choose the right one" is clearly indicated here.

I can not see the pressure nor any reason for a misunderstanding.

Rainer Herrmann

See Frances's response.

[jallerton]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2011-December-13, 17:23, said:

I think you can only get ♣ into the picture with a 2♠ rebid after 2♥ ( for the reasons others have stated ).
Partner will know you have at least 8 cards in the blacks.... more likely 9 cards.... and possibly 10.
1H - 2C! ( 2/1 GF )
2H - 2S
3D - 3H
4H - 5NT! ( choice of slams; forget about RKC-ask with your 22 hcp hand )

Even with your original auction, just bid 5NT! ( or maybe 6C would be a clearer "choice-of-slams" bid since Club length had not be clarified earlier ) directly over 4H.

When you say 5NT is "choice of slams", do you mean choice of small slams? If so, how do you plan to get to a grand slam? It's not obvious that partner will also cue ♦A over 3♥ on your auction.

I wouldn't have chosen 3♥ myself, but the player who bid it explained his reasoning to me. He wanted to be in a grand slam (presumably 7NT) opposite ♥AK and ♦A and a nice simple way to find out about this is to agree hearts then use RKCB. He was concerned that if he bid something else, it might become harder to find out about ♥AK and ♦A later.

In an ideal world, you want to be able to find out all of:

1. Whether partner has ♥J and/or a 7th heart
2. Whether partner has ♣J
3. How many clubs partner has.
4. Whether partner has ♦A
5. Whether partner has ♦Q
6. Whether partner has ♠Q

Maybe a series of relays would help. In the absence of a relay system I would bid a natural 2♠, but I would not be confident that I would be able to find out everything I needed to know.

[jallerton]

Fluffy, on 2011-December-13, 02:27, said:

Ok, so the alternatives are pass, 6♥ and 6NT. Both contracts could be down from the start with the other being cold, but 6NT at least requires LHO to make the best lead for that.

Chances of partner having ♥AK are better than ♦A, if you drop into the mixture that he might have 7 hearts, and/or ♥J and ♥10, I think 6♥ is superior in average.

I agree that partner is quite likely to hold ♥AK, but even if this is the case and hence she lacks ♦A, she will probably hold ♦Q to make up her opening bid. Even if she doesn't hold ♦AQ, it will not be at all obvious for LHO to lead ♦A against 6NT if he is the owner of that card.

[hatchett]

mike777, on 2011-December-13, 19:31, said:

3c



going down the rabbit hole.

ok what is pards bid over this?

I can't see how rebidding 3♣ in this sequence can be right.
If partner has xx AKJxxx AJTx x he will presumably rebid 3NT. How do we get to 7♥ now?
He is certainly not going to believe your hearts are as good as Qx.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Statto, on 2011-December-13, 16:31, said:

That's not what I meant at all . I just assumed 6♣ here would be offering the choice between 6♣ and 6♥ in case P had something like ♠x-♥AJxxxx-♦AQx-♣Jxx. Not familiar with the method of looking for a Queen for grand, tho it's probably better as many grands are hard to find without being able to discover if partner has a specific Queen .

Prefer 6♥ to 6NT as P may have nothing in diamonds, tho with the hand I just gave, 6NT is better...

I don't know why folks are contemplating the Grand when off 1 key card ! ( not knowing which key card is missing ).

[mike777]

hatchett, on 2011-December-17, 11:33, said:

I can't see how rebidding 3♣ in this sequence can be right.
If partner has xx AKJxxx AJTx x he will presumably rebid 3NT. How do we get to 7♥ now?
He is certainly not going to believe your hearts are as good as Qx.

For starters partner does not rebid 2nt after 2s with your example hand he rebids 3d but even if he does not, no problem. Again we bid 2s so pard would describe his hand further.

Note I am trying to get to 7c or 7nt if pard does not have KH so dont bid 2nt with your example. Bidding 3d over 2s is correct, in fact your example hand is almost good enough to bid 2d over 2c. I would, your example is far far from a minimum


I agree that it may complicate the bidding but finding the AKH and AD is pretty easy even when clubs are trumps and we keycard in clubs. I assume after 3c Frances has a sure way to keycard with clubs are trumps even if pard rebids 3nt.

For me I can bid 4d over 3nt which is keycard in clubs pard shows 2 and then I can specific K ask.

[tolvyrj]

Well since 2♣ was forcing to game is see no reason why i could not bid 4♣ after 2♥, since i dont have to jump to introduce long ♣ suit, it must ( or shld ) be cue bid for ♥ as trumps. Now wheter or prd bids cue in ♦, i will be better placed to judge wheter we shld play small slam in ♥ or in no-trumps.
Yes i have give up the possibility to play 6 ♣.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

tolvyrj, on 2011-December-17, 13:24, said:

Well since 2♣ was forcing to game is see no reason why i could not bid 4♣ after 2♥, since i dont have to jump to introduce long ♣ suit, it must ( or shld ) be cue bid for ♥ as trumps. Now wheter or prd bids cue in ♦, i will be better placed to judge wheter we shld play small slam in ♥ or in no-trumps.
Yes i have give up the possibility to play 6 ♣.

4C-jump now over 2H sets good, long ♣ as trump.... demanding cuebids.

[aguahombre]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2011-December-17, 14:11, said:

4C-jump now over 2H sets good, long ♣ as trump.... demanding cuebids.

1H-2C
2H-4C (for reference to what we are talking about).

Yes, shows a long-solid club suit as trump (for now) and demands cuebids. However, the South hand as given in the OP should not do that.

[mike777]

aguahombre, on 2011-December-17, 14:17, said:

1H-2C
2H-4C (for reference to what we are talking about).

Yes, shows a long-solid club suit as trump (for now) and demands cuebids. However, the South hand as given in the OP should not do that.

agree.

lets try and find out if pard is close to:

xx..AKxxxx..Axxx..x(3d over 2s)
or

Qx...Axxxxx...Axx..Jx(2nt over 2s) or xx...Axxxxx..AQx...Jx
or

Qx...AKxxxx....QTxx...x(3d over 2s)

I mean these are really minimum hands, pard can have more.